10 Moments of a Life
by Pantomine
Summary: Ten moments from ten different points of views, all coming together to create the portrait of life during, before, and after the Hunger Games. To be updated daily until complete.
1. Moment 1

1/10

She is a serious child, even at four. Not as serious as she will one day become, after the father dies and the mother drifts into herself. Not yet as serious as the huntress she grows to be, the one whose eyes are flint and whose arrows never miss. There are years and years yet for this little girl to morph into that hard young woman.

But even at four, she has serious eyes in her open face.

"What will you name her?" she asks, climbing onto her mother's lap. The woman's belly has begun to grow round, and the healer smiles, stroking her daughter's hair.

"How do you know it will be a girl, Katniss?"

The child is quiet a moment. Then she lays her ear against the woman's stomach, as if listening very, very closely to the murmurings of life within. Her forehead scrunches up slightly; she closes her eyes.

"It's a girl," she says quietly, and she sounds so sure, the woman doesn't dare laugh.

When the baby is born and the midwife declares her a healthy, if scrawny, little girl, the exhausted mother exchanges an amused look with her husband, who sits at her side.

Primrose, they name her, though she is born in winter. Primrose, for all their dreams of the spring.

The baby is small and colicky and cries endlessly. Her mother does not have enough milk. The family does not have enough food.

Katniss stands by her sister's cradle in the night and sings lullabies by candlelight, her voice sweet and high and the only thing that will quiet the baby's tears.

Primrose. Primrose.


	2. Moment 2

2/10

He knew her name before she told him. Of course he did. She'd been there at the ceremony after the mine accident, had stood so straight and tall as the mayor awarded her a medal in memory of her father's death. He has an identical medal, so he knows how heavy it must have felt around her neck. Katniss Everdeen, the major had called her, and he had remembered.

When he saw her in the woods the first time and she whispered her name, he'd pretended to mishear. _Catnip_, he'd called her, and enjoyed the life it brought to her eyes, the spark of annoyance where before, there had only been exhausted fear.

He'd taught her to hunt, to snare. And, he had to admit, she'd taught him a few things of her own.

"Higher," she whispers now.

"I'm aiming for the bird, not the tree," he whispers back.

"_Higher_," she insists, and he sighs but inches his arrow up a little before letting it fly. It misses, and the fowl squawks into a flurry of feathers, exploding up toward the canopy—when Katniss shoots and kills the bird in one fluid motion.

She's grinning slightly as she stands and doesn't stop when he glares at her. "You told me to aim higher."

"You aimed too low before," she says simply. "Then you aimed too high."

They stand to retrieve the fallen bird, and he can't help but be impressed by the clean shot. He doesn't tell her, of course. She's already far too self-confident for a such a slip of a twelve-year-old girl.

They don't catch anything else that day. They have three close hits, but the animals are even more skittish than the humans here in District Twelve, and when night falls and they're forced to wiggle back through the fence, it's with nothing more than aching bodies and one pitiful bird.

Katniss is eyeing it, though he is the one holding it. It is her kill, but the two of them have agreed to share everything they catch more or less equally. More or less because Katniss has only one little sibling to care for, and he has so many more.

They sell the bird and buy bread. Katniss doesn't understand why on weekdays he insists on buying bread only after five but before nine. He doesn't tell her, partly to tease her and partly because it might upset her if she knew.

The boy behind the counter at the bakery is about Katniss's age, but unlike her, he's big for his years and looks older. Katniss might not notice the way the blonde boy watches her as soon as she enters the shop, but Gale does. She might not notice how he always gives her the biggest loaf he can, the best loaf he can, but Gale does.

Gale has his suspicions why, but he doesn't dwell on it. It doesn't matter. What matters is the food in their hands as they exit the shop and the silent understanding they have as they part in the semi-darkness.

They are partners now, and tomorrow is another hunt.


	3. Moment 3

3/10

His world is pulled from from under him as soon as he hears her name.

Primrose Everdeen.

Primrose.

Prim.

His eyes shoot to her though he can hardly bear to look. Only twelve years old. She is so tiny and so frail, white under her blonde hair, just a shade lighter than his own. Twelve. He knows Katniss would never allow her to buy any tesserae, so the child could only have one entry.

And yet she was drawn.

"Katniss," Prim whispers—mouths, really. She's trembling, trembling so hard is seems she will shatter. "Katniss."

And he is forced to turn, to search the group of sixteen-year-old girls for the huntress, and to bear the pain crippling her body. She says nothing; not at first, and in his mind he is already fast-forwarding to the months ahead, to Prim's inevitable death on the giant screen in the town square, to her mother's inevitable collapse. To Katniss's…Katniss's what? What would this brave, beautiful girl do then?

"I volunteer," she screams, and if he thought his world disappeared before, he is proven wrong.

She pushes through the crowd, pushing toward the vain, silly woman and the drunkard who will lead her to her death. Prim runs toward her, but Katniss's friend—that Gale—catches her and holds her back.

He cannot move. He cannot move to help her or save her, and when his name is the next one called, he does not know if this is a punishment or a gift.

He does not expect either of his brothers to volunteer for him, and neither does. He does not try to look them in the eye because he knows they will not meet his.

He goes to join Katniss on the makeshift stage and sees her struggle not to cry. She succeeds because she is Katniss, and he dreams of being half as strong and brave as she is.

A girl like that cannot die as entertainment. A girl like that cannot be slaughtered while thousands of hungry, or terrified, or grief-stricken eyes watch and watch and watch.

He forces himself to smile for the cameras.

And he begins to plan.


	4. Moment 4

4/10

She feeds and milks the goat. She pets Buttercup and holds him close at night, trying so hard to substitute his small warmth for the sister who is now gone. She cries, though she has already promised herself so many times that she will stop.

She tries to smile at Gale when he brings her food. She tries to comfort her mother, who shakes whenever they watch Katniss up on the screen. She tries to keep from looking away. In the beginning, this isn't too difficult. Her sister is beautiful at the Capitol. The Girl On Fire, they call her, and they clothe her in glittering dresses and paint her until she is a goddess. This part is still hard to watch—hard to see Katniss, who has never worn make-up in her life and hardly ever worn a dress since Prim can remember—stand there like their made-up doll.

But Prim can bear it because what they all say is true. Katniss burns. Katniss has always burned, and Prim takes comfort in her fire.

Then the Games begin for real, and so do the true horrors.

She watches every day twice. Once on the television screen that the teachers wheel into the classrooms. They hardly have class during the Games. They go to school to sit at their hard wooden desks and watch their former schoolmate die.

The second time is in her dreams, and as bad as things are on the screen—as bad as seeing Katniss bleeding and aching for water…as horrifying as all that is…It is ten times worse after dark, when her dreams twist and snap things into gruesome nightmares.

Sometimes, it isn't Katniss in those dreams. Sometimes it's herself. Facing the fireballs. Caught in the tree above the Careers. Pulling out the tracker jacker stings and stumbling half-mad into the water.

She wakes screaming, stifling the noise with her pillow, weeping into her blankets.

She is a terrible person. A horrible sister.

Because at those times, she is so, so glad it isn't her. She is so, so glad that Katniss volunteered.

And then the dream loosens its claws and she is nauseated by her own selfish thoughts. She can't think like that. She must never think like that. She has to be good. She has to be kind, and good, and worthwhile.

She has to prove to herself, and to the rest of the world, that Primrose Everdeen was worth saving. That her sister did not suffer in vain.


	5. Moment 5

5/10

Once upon a time, the alcohol used to burn. He'd have to choke and sputter it down, squeezing his eyes shut as they teared up. Now he hardly notices it. The drinks go down like water, and like water, they sweep away all the things he'd rather not remember.

The first person he killed. Stab wound to the neck. From behind.

A fourteen-year-old girl who'd sobbed over the body of another girl from her district, her cries covering the sound of his footsteps. It had been day two of the Games. He'd been hungry and thirsty and she'd had a canteen of water.

He laughs, pounding his fist into the bar table. It seems only fitting that the first time he'd ever split blood had been for a drink.

The second and third kills happened within minutes of one another. A little boy and girl, again from the same district, holding hands. They'd been so small from malnutrition they'd looked like dolls.

He likes to think he killed them to spare them a more painful death. They would have never survived until the end, anyway, and much better to die quickly, from behind, than to die slowly and in terror.

He tells himself this, and when he begins to think otherwise, he throws another shot down and lets the slow fire burn the thoughts away. But the fire has been getting weaker and weaker over the years, and what once took two shots to abolish now takes four or five.

After the third kill, he met Maysilee. _Met_ is the wrong word. He'd always known Maysilee, and when she offered her alliance, he'd accepted. Maysilee looked like an angel and, when she had to, killed like a falcon.

She was the only thing that could have—that did—make him reconsider surviving.

But then she left. She _left_.

He sets down the bottle. Lays his head in his hands and leans forward until they rest against the cold, glossy table. The alcohol no longer burns, no matter how strong it is, no matter how much he drinks.

But the memories…the memories are never quenched.


	6. Moment 6

6/10

He dresses her in yellow for many reasons. Because yellow is the color of sunlight on a warm summer's day. Because yellow is the color of a candle flame when it burns through the darkness. Because yellow is soft and innocent on the surface but powerful and strong underneath, just like Katniss will have to be from now on.

How they can expect a girl who survived the Hunger Games to ever be soft and innocent, he'll never understand. But it is what the people want, and if he understands anything, it's that Katniss now needs the people's help if she's going to survive.

The dress is padded to make her look gentler, and he has applied the make up to her face himself, using all his skill to make her eyes seem wide and her lips pink and her cheeks flushed. When he is done and the two of them look at her in the mirror, he almost thinks he has succeeded.

But then he looks at her, really looks at her, and he knows nothing in the world will ever cover up the pain Katniss bears. Not if someone really knows how to look.

How so very lucky they are then, he thinks wryly, that the people of the Capitol have long since lost that skill.

She is quiet as he runs a brush through her hair, and he wonders if anyone has ever brushed her hair lovingly before. If anyone has ever dressed this girl up because they loved her and they thought her beautiful and they wanted her to shine.

Carefully, he slips a golden hairband on her head. It's luminous against her dark hair, like a halo. The angel Katniss. That's she'll have to pretend to be tonight. The little love-struck angel. The people will love her. And then maybe, maybe, they won't let her die.

"What do you think?" he says softly.

She studies herself a moment longer in the mirror. "I look like a child."

You are a child, he wants to say. Or you should be. You should be allowed to be a child. But what use are words like those?

"Peeta will like it," he says instead, and he thinks she understands.

In a moment, it is time to go. He takes her to her spot, where she is to stand so she will rise up to the stage in front of thousands. He leaves her side to go to his own spot, and as he begins to move upward, he catches her eyes one last time.

She flickers in the darkness, a solitary flame.

(I've taken a few creative liberties with my "moments," but especially with this one since it is a moment that actually happens in the book, though differently. This is my version of it, had Cinna and Katniss been alone)


	7. Moment 7

7/10

Some days, she wakes up and forgets that he is dead. She emerges from her dreams reaching across the bed for his warmth and finds nothing. Even after five years, the emptiness is shattering.

The house is so quiet with him gone. There's no one whistling in the morning as he dresses or singing lullabies to the girls before bed, soothing them to sleep. There's no one to put his arms around her as she washes the dishes, to laugh into her neck and tickle the back of her ear with his kisses.

It's been more than five years since she's felt his touch. Since the morning he left—just a little after dawn—with a kiss for both the girls and a promise to be home as early as he could. Since the explosion that she heard even cloistered in their home, tending to a boy who couldn't stop coughing.

She, the boy, and his mother had all frozen in their places. Everyone knew what an explosion in District Twelve meant.

Prim is crying, and she comes alive just enough to clutch her younger daughter's hand. They're standing at the train station, surrounded by the rest of the District. Everyone is silent but for Prim's weeping.

It all reminds her of the crowd at the mine the day her husband died. The hushed silence, broken only by tears. No—no, there had been more screaming then. Mothers and fathers, brothers and sisters and husbands and wives throwing themselves toward the wreckage, screaming for the loved ones buried within.

"Look—" someone cries, "the train!" He doesn't sound happy exactly—just tense. Tense and unsure.

Prim squeezes back on her hand, so hard it ought to hurt, but she has been beyond feeling for so long, she doesn't even wince.

Five years ago, a man died with a tune on his lips and a promise to come home. She has never recovered from that, and she can't find it in herself to believe she ever will.

But Katniss—Katniss left with a mockingjay pin and a promise, too.

The train screeches to a stop, making hair fly and ragged clothes flutter. There is a dramatic pause before the doors open, no doubt for the benefit of the half dozen cameras set up nearby.

Then they do open—the doors do open, and there she is—her child. Her older daughter. Her Katniss whole and alive and strong.

She will never recover from her husband's death. But she can no longer afford not to try.


	8. Author's Note

Okay, so there should be three more "Moments," but I'm not sure if anyone is actually reading this story anymore, lol. If there is, let me know, kay? Because otherwise, there isn't much point in my putting anything up…

-Pantomine


	9. Moment 8

8/10

When she was a little girl, her mother told her every day that she was beautiful. But it was never that simple. It was never just, "Octavia, you are beautiful." It was always, "Octavia, you look _gorgeous_ in that dress," or "Octavia, that hair color makes your face absolutely ravishing," or "Octavia, I have never seen a diamond look so fabulous on anyone."

Where did she end and the jewels, the paint, the glitter begin? Sometime around her eleventh or twelfth birthday, maybe even earlier than that, she lost track. Octavia was the jewels, and the jewels were Octavia.

All the other girls were the same. Well, all the other girls at school or in the magazines or in the movies. The only girls who didn't have their skin dyed pretty colors or crystals implanted at the corners of their eyes were those poor things from the Districts, and she hardly ever saw any of those.

Except, of course, during the Hunger Games. She doesn't remember the first time she watched a Game. She does remember that it was the Game the year she was thirteen that first made her dream about becoming a stylist for one of those girls. Such fabulous costumes! Imagine—all the country focused on your creation as she paraded around. Such glamour. Such beauty.

She simply had to be a part of it. The job wasn't easy to get, oh no. But she was good at what she did. Hadn't her mother always praised her ability to conjure up beauty? Yes, Octavia knew how to make a girl sparkle or smoke or shine. She knew how to apply black makeup to make the eyes widen or slant, knew how to pinken cheeks or lift a dull mouth or enhance the soft curve of an arm.

Every girl she remade, she sent off with one simple phrase: _Now—now, look how beautiful you are._

She'd almost said it to Katniss during her first Game, but something held her tongue at the last moment. She wishes now that she'd never said what she did about Prim, either—about how she'd almost wished Prim were the one in the beauty chair because her face was so darling, and wouldn't she have had the most wonderful fun wrapping her in frothy white lace? She'd have made a perfect little angel, wouldn't she?

Yes, she wishes she hadn't said it, now that she knows—truly, truly knows—what the Games mean and what Prim means to Katniss.

She'll never again find beauty in the dye in her skin or the jewels in her ears. All the beauty in the world is reserved, now, for people like the little child who said that Octavia was beautiful in any color.

She hopes someday to find herself somewhere in the midst of all the glitter, which had long since gone dull.


	10. Moment 9

9/10

It's been a long time since she's had enough ingredients to make a decent meal—one that's not scrounged together from stringy animals and bitter plants. She likes to think she did a good enough job with what she had. Her stews were always edible and never made anyone sick, even if her customers had to choke them down a little.

Now she has more ingredients than she's ever seen in her life, but she has no more customers. Then Katniss returns, that little girl who hasn't been a little girl for far too many years. She returns broken and as thin as she'd used to be before her first Game, nothing more than muscles and skin stretched over bone. Actually, she's lost the muscle, too, so it's just skin now. Skin and bones and vacant gray eyes.

Sae feeds her because she must feed somebody, and Katniss is as good as anyone else, if not better. She gives her soup at first, because it is what she's used to making and because the girl looks too frail for anything requiring more chewing. Then she graduates to stews and then to potatoes and bread and meat. She's never had so much meat to prepare before, but it seems that this new government, whatever they're up to, isn't about to let the Mockingjay starve.

This continues for a while, just the two of them. She cooking and Katniss eating. She sits and watches her because the girl won't eat otherwise, but she doesn't mind. She remembers the girl who used to come to her with dead rabbits and squirrels and the odd wild dog, that ever-present fierceness in her eyes.

The fierceness is gone now, but the girl remains, and she must eat.

They are two for a long while, but slowly, as these things tend to happen, they become three. The boy comes long before Sae counts him as part of the little group she and Katniss make up. He hovers at the edges, greeting her. She greets him back and sometimes she wonders who is feeding him, this weary boy with his now-rough hands and tired eyes. But he doesn't seem to be going hungry, and she is satisfied with feeding Katniss.

But something is going on, and even if Sae doesn't know exactly what, she'd seen both the Games and heard the news and so she isn't surprised when, eventually, the two of them become three.

Peeta is a welcome addition, she has to admit. Nice to have someone who speaks and who gets Katniss to speak. Nice to have someone who, eventually, joins her in the kitchen and teases her about her flat breads and crumbly biscuits.

But eventually, she knows, their three will become two again. She is an old woman compared to the two of them, and she is not really a part of what they have.

She can only give them food, but they can give each other so much more.

She hopes they do.

* * *

Sorry about the delay, guys! I had a Moment written, but then I decided it would make a better Moment 10 to round out the story. Look for it tomorrow! :)


	11. Moment 10

10/10

She knows it's a bad morning when she gets up and there's no breakfast on the table, no humming in the air. She knows it's been a long night when her little brother cries and she's the first to reach his cradle. She doesn't understand, not completely, but she's grown up with these bad mornings and long nights and a part of her realizes that they're getting less and less frequent. That, she thinks, must be a good thing.

And afterwards, things are always back to normal. Daddy laughs again afterwards and teaches her how to make cakes that tower almost as tall a she is but never fall. Afterwards, Mother smiles at her again and runs her fingers through her hair, plaiting it into beautiful braids. The way Grandmother had done Mother's hair a long, long, long time ago.

This she knows from the stories. Daddy doesn't tell them often, and Mother even less, but she thinks they might have something to do with the bad mornings and the long nights. Maybe. She doesn't understand why. The stories seem happy.

On the good days, she asks for them sometimes. There's a book that Mother has, and she wasn't supposed to see it—that much she knows. But she did see it once, and she looked through it. She couldn't read anything yet, of course, but she saw the pictures and sometimes, on the good days, she asks her mother who they were.

She likes two best. One of a girl with smooth, dark skin and big black eyes. One of a girl with golden hair and a smile that makes anyone who looks at her picture feel immediately like a friend.

Today, she asks about the first one.

Mother is quiet, as she always is before she begins a story. "She was a little girl."

"Older than me?" she asks, climbing onto her lap. It takes a moment, but Mother's arms wrap around her, and she stills. She is safe here in her mother's embrace.

"Yes."

"How much? One year? Two?"

"Much more than that."

She looks up, frowning. "Then she wasn't a little girl."

"No," Mother says. Her arms tighten. "No, she was very much a little girl."

Then she tells her about how Rue could flit from tree to tree like a bird, how she could sing like one too, and how the mockingjays would copy her songs until they were her chorus.

She doesn't ask how her mother knew her. She doesn't ask where Rue is now. She guesses the two of them were friends once, when her mother was a little girl. But that was such a very long time ago. So much could have happened between now and then.

She's just happy that this morning isn't one of the bad ones, and she hopes the night will pass peacefully, too.

* * *

Annnd...that is the end :) I hope you guys have enjoyed it. I've enjoyed writing it, to be sure. I don't know if I'll continue writing Hunger Games fanfiction. But if anyone has any requests or anything, I'm open to them!


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